Some mosquitoes really are picky eaters. They will not just stick their proboscis into any old human. We know this anecdotally, with some people claiming they are always bitten while others are completely ignored, though we don't really know why.
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Low river discharge reduces the likelihood of young Atlantic salmon reaching the North Sea. Fewer salmon reach the Haringvliet sluices, and their passage takes longer, making them more likely to fall prey to predators. Using so-called predation tags, researchers were able to demonstrate for the first time that this predation occurs largely before the Haringvliet sluices and is probably mainly caused by predatory fish. The results provide leads for improving the management of the Haringvliet sluices.
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More than 1,000 years ago, two babies were tucked away in an abandoned Roman toilet channel. Yet, despite what the location suggests, they were cherished, not discarded.
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Dark matter is usually described as an invisible substance that responds only to gravity. But scientists are now exploring a more complex possibility: dark matter particles may also interact through a hidden force of their own.
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Mathematicians have concluded that a perfectly fair election system is impossible in a specific mathematical sense. No voting method can always ensure that local victories produce local seats, national seat totals accurately reflect overall vote shares, and the size of parliament remains fixed.
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The rapid intensification of a hurricane ranks among the most dangerous weather events on Earth. Storms such as Hurricane Michael, which crashed ashore in the Florida Panhandle with winds of 160 mph (about 257 km/h), and Hurricane Otis, the costliest hurricane to strike Mexico's Pacific coast, caught communities unawares when they intensified at a rate that computer models failed to anticipate.
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Malari-prevention strategies like bed nets are crucial in the fight against the infection Hajarah Nalwadda/Getty Images
By the end of this century, malaria could be eradicated in West and Central Africa, two of the worst-affected regions. A modelling study suggests cases will plummet in these areas if the extreme heat caused by climate change makes them uninhabitable for mosquitoes. But this also means malaria is expected to become more pronounced in the cooler regions of Africa.
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The modern workday unfolds largely indoors. Long hours spent commuting, sitting in meetings and staring at screens can make time outdoors feel like a luxury. Finding time for nature in an already packed workday can feel impossible, especially if you think nature only "counts" when it involves hiking boots and camping gear.
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Researchers have obtained the deepest images ever taken of IC 1101, allowing them to identify the galaxy's outer edge for the first time. The observations confirm it as the largest known galaxy, spanning roughly 520 kiloparsecs, or about 1.7 million light-years, and containing an estimated 3.4 trillion solar masses in stars. The paper was posted to the arXiv preprint server on July 16.
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In late June, whale watchers in southwest Western Australia sounded the alarm. They had seen far fewer humpback whales at a time when they normally migrate up from the Southern Ocean to calve and feed. Numbers were 60% below normal.
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